Scarlet Skies are Falling: Killer Queen
by NarutoRomantic
Summary: Early on in their relationship, Sakura came to terms with the fact that there were some things her husband would never share with her, some secrets just too painful to share. But Sasuke's secrecy has unforeseen consequences that quickly expand beyond the boundaries of the growing Uchiha Clan. Namely: What dug up the immortal Hidan in the Nara forest? SasuSaku, ShikaTema, Ita?


**Killer Queen  
Introduction**

* * *

Shikamaru awoke with a start, tearing himself out of his wife's embrace and tumbling off the side of the bed in his haste. The blankets were still twisted around his half-naked form, and his struggle to free himself from the cloth prison would've been comical under normal circumstances.

But in that moment, something was seriously wrong. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, a knot that was so tight he could hardly breathe.

The dream that had startled him into consciousness had been unlike anything he'd experienced before. It had been less of a dream and more of a... vision. In it, he'd been trapped in the middle of the forest in the heart of Fire Country, staring at the ruins of what must've been a fairly massive explosion. But at the same time, _he_ wasn't actually there at all. It was almost as if he were watching the scene through another's eyes.

A blood-curdling laugh had cut through the eerie silence of the night, as a slim young woman stood over the crater left behind by the explosion. The woman seemed utterly unperturbed by the fact that she was bleeding quite heavily from a shoulder wound that looked to be clean through-and-through. Her cackling only seemed to increase when a pale hand slowly clawed it's way through the rubble, their fingers little more than bloody stubs.

He'd woken with an image of magenta eyes and silver hair still haunting his vision, realization rendering him immobile. He fell to his knees with a soft _thud_ , barely even registering the way his body was trembling. _Even his best efforts had failed at stopping the immortal..._

After everything was said and done, he'd failed to avenge his late sensei...

"Mmm, Shikamaru?" Temari must've stirred when he'd fallen to his knees, as she was only just realizing her husband was not in bed beside her. Not sensing any immediate danger, she was slow to come to herself, mumbling tiredly, "What's the matter? It's not like you to be awake this early..."

Shikamaru stared blankly ahead, still attempting to comprehend how this could have happened. "He's a-alive..."

Temari frowned, "Who exactly are we talking about?"

But there was only one way to be certain, "I need to go to Fire Country. There is important business that I need to attend to there." Could it be that the land was attempting to warn him about Hidan's revival via the vision?

 _Now_ Temari was fully awake, and looking at her husband like he'd suddenly grown a second head. It couldn't have been later than 2 AM, and Shikamaru was insisting that he leave on urgent business to the _Fire Country_. She knew her husband hadn't received any missions lately, so as far as she knew this was merely a spur of the moment whim. And like hell she was letting him leave at this hour, in this state of mind, without more information.

Sliding off the bed with much more grace than Shikamaru had demonstrated, she gripped her husband's forearm and forced him to face her. "What's the meaning of this, Shikamaru? I feel like you're hiding something from me."

"There's no reason to burden you with -," he was promptly cut off when Temari smacked him on the back of the head, a little bit rougher than necessary.

"Baka," she sighed, running her fingers through her tangled blonde locks. Seriously, she sometimes wondered how her husband could be so brilliant and daft at the same time. "We're married now. That means my burdens are yours, and vice versa."

"Still, I don't want to -," Temari raised her hand again, the gleam in her eye leaving no room for argument.

"I'm not afraid to smack you again, if it'll knock some sense into that thick head of yours." She said lowly.

"Gah, it's too early to be dealing with troublesome women." He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes slipping closed as he resigned himself to his fate. "I think that I might've had a vision of the Nara forest... more specifically, something coming _out_ of the forest."

He attempted to fill her in on the story, starting with the battle between Team Asuma and the Zombie Twins, skirting around the still-sensitive topic of his late sensei's death. This culminated in the final battle between the remainder of Team Asuma, Team Kakashi, Kakashi and Yamato and the two soon-to-be deceased members of the Akatsuki... where he buried the immortal Hidan in the Nara forest, where he was _supposed_ to spend the rest of eternity.

Apparently, the Jashin priest had other ideas. The real question was: who was that that had helped him escape?

"There was a woman there, too, but I didn't recognize her. She wasn't included in the briefs we received about the members of the Akatsuki, but I don't know why anyone else would want to rescue that foul-mouthed religious psychopath." Shikamaru ranted.

Temari nodded, before playing devil's advocate. "Could it be possible that this was just a nightmare, spawned by the anniversary of your sensei's death?"

Of course that was possible. He couldn't count the number of nights he'd lain awake, unable to fall asleep because every time he closed his eyes he saw Asuma collapse on the battlefield in a pool of his own blood, dead only because of Shikamaru's own inadequacies.

It was possible, but the knot in his stomach told Shikamaru that it was unlikely.

After a moment of tense silence, he countered with, "Even if it is a possibility, I can't risk it. Hidan is beyond dangerous, and now has an even larger vendetta against the Leaf Village. I can't, in good conscience, just brush it off as a nightmare."

Temari posed no further argument, which he was thankful for. Instead, and perhaps worse, she merely began to dress, saying, "I'm coming with you."

Now it was Shikamaru's turn to look at his wife like she'd grown a second head, "Temari, you're three and a half months -,"

"If you so much as imply that I'm incapable of accompanying you because of this pregnancy, so help me that little love tap from earlier will be the least of your concerns." She scowled. "Now get dressed. If we leave within the hour, we'll be able to make it by dawn."

Shikamaru swallowed hard and nodded, trying not to think of the demented glee Hidan would take in ending both Temari and their unborn child's lives in an instant. He'd already lost too many loved ones... he didn't think he could take another loss of that magnitude. If he lost Temari...

He shook his head, attempting to rid himself of the dark thought. Besides, if Temari knew he was thinking that way, she'd probably cuff him again.

* * *

"You look like shit." A soft, velvety voice cut through the silence of the night.

"Yeah, well how 'bout _you_ try getting fucking blown into hundreds of little pieces and spend five Jashin-damned years in a _hole_." Hidan muttered darkly. "And in case no-one told ya, you fucking bitch, you ain't looking too good yourself."

The woman looked at her gaping shoulder wound, before laughing, "This? The deer in this forest seem to be particularly rowdy. One attempted to charge me while I was digging your sorry ass out of the ground, and well..."

She inclined her head to the side, and Hidan turned to see a deer carcass perhaps one-hundred feet away. A dark sword gleamed from it's neck, her blood still dripping from one of it's massive antlers. Raising her hand, the sword began to _melt_ , before flying through the air and filling the space where the antler had pierced her through. The wound healed rapidly, and soon there was no sign it had ever been there.

"C'mon, we've already wasted enough time. Waiting around much longer is just asking for trouble." She rolled her shoulder, attempting to keep it from stiffening up. "Unless, of course, you'd like to return to your hole for the rest of eternity."

Hidan's eye twitched, "Why the fuck did it take five years for someone to dig me out of that Jashin-forsaken hell hole?"

The woman rolled her eyes, "Maybe it's because everyone else is _dead_ , Hidan."

"So those fucking brats actually managed to kill the damned miser, huh." Hidan reflected almost thoughtfully. And then, just a tad skeptical, "Aren't you supposed to be dead, too?"

She sighed, "And here I thought you might be grateful enough about being rescued from that damn hole to actually keep your trap shut for once. Wishful thinking, I suppose." She shrugged, "I was dead, and then I wasn't. And that's all I know."

Unzipping her cloak, she lifted the hem of her shirt and showed the Jashinist the scar that had resulted from her apparent 'demise'. Electric burns, perhaps from a lightning-style technique, stretched out over her skin like a giant black star. It still looked painful, but she acted as though she couldn't even feel it. She let Hidan trace his fingers over the markings, before pulling her shirt back down and withdrawing into her cloak once more.

Five years had not aged the 'Blood Demoness of the Sand' at all, in Hidan's opinion. Hidan had worked with her on enough occasions to know that her blood was the equivalent of the Fountain of Youth - even at twenty-seven, she scarcely looked a day older than sixteen.

Her blood was also the deadliest weapon the Jashinist had ever seen.

She started walking toward the mouth of the forest, assuming the loud-mouthed priest was following behind her. The way the deer were watching them, slowly peeking their heads around the trunks of the trees, always staying back beneath the cover of darkness... well, it was rather unnerving. There had been nothing gratifying in the way the deer had simply watched her with blank, emotionless eyes as it's life blood gushed from it's neck.

"So, where are we headed, now that the Jashin-damned Akatsuki is six-feet under? It's not like we have any-fucking-one to report to, now." Hidan reflected.

His new partner was silent for a moment, before answering, "I've been thinking... five years in that hole, unable to sacrifice anyone to your precious god... and who is to blame?"

"That damned Nara." Hidan snarled, feeling his blood boil at the mere mention of the boy's - he supposed he was now a man - name.

She grinned, bloodlust reflected in her onyx eyes. "What do you say we pay your old friend a visit, hmm?"

* * *

"Sakura oba-san!" The door to the apartment slammed open, revealing a bloody, terrified eight-year-old girl. Sakura dropped the dish she'd been about to place in the oven, rushing over to the tiny child to inspect her for any injuries.

"Makoto, what happened?" She asked, not liking the way the child was attempting to squirm out of her arms.

Fat tears were coursing down her cheeks, mixing with the blood that had splattered on her face. "Not me! It's Samuru nii-chan! We were training and he just... just _collapsed_! There was so much blood and then... then -,"

Suddenly, another form appeared in the doorway. A small face peered over Makoto's shoulder, concern clear in his onyx eyes. "What's the matter, Makoto? Didn't I say that I was fine?"

The boy's clothes were splattered with blood, and there was a sizeable tear in his shirt where the wound _should_ have been. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Samuru clearly had more blood on him, and Makoto didn't have a scratch to speak of, Sakura would've wondered if he'd been injured at all. With that significant amount of blood loss, the eight-year-old should be in the hospital, not standing before her with a look of worried confusion on his face.

Just what exactly had happened out there?

* * *

 **A/N:** So... Let me know what you think. This fic does go along with _Scarlet Skies Are Falling,_ so you will notice that certain characters from the two stories overlap. If you do want the history for Samuru and Makoto, you'll find it there.

Please remember to review!


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